Five Death Penalty Cases Tainted by Racism

. . . In 2000, Johnny Bennett, a black man, was sentenced to death in South Carolina for stabbing and killing a friend. . . . Myers himself referred to Bennett as “King Kong” and a “beast of burden,” and elicited from another witness that Bennett’s prior girlfriend had been “a blond lady”—a not-so-subtle reminder to the all-white jury that the defendant had dated a white woman. . . . Continue reading: Mother Jones